


Time Takes a Cigarette

by jld_az



Series: Just Another Future Song [6]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: (because it's the 70's), (but also they're kinda superhuman?), (but not really), Canon Parallel w/ Copious Artistic License, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/M, Hand Jobs, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Sexual Content, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jld_az/pseuds/jld_az
Summary: (or 'Just Another Future Song, redux')A secret visit to Malwain stirs some repressed memories, and the threat of war looms.Main Title from 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide'Chapter Titles from 'The Bewlay Brothers' by David Bowie
Relationships: Martin / Ariaunna (OFC)
Series: Just Another Future Song [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696642
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	1. With Saccharine and Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously folks. I set out to write a tidy little bridge between '[As Though Nothing Could Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587879)' and '[Liberty She Pirouette](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23731828)'.
> 
> Turns out in order to be 'tidy', it won't be 'little'. Yay filling the narrative!
> 
> Setting(s):  
> Keene, Kentucky, Shadow Earth  
> Rjimswood, Eminence Bay, Malwain  
> Port Laskill, Texorami  
> Timestamp: December 1981 - August 1982 (in Keene)

Martin cocked his head, directing an ear toward the studio door behind him, and glanced at his watch.

“How’s Tristan?” he queried with a half grin, fingers resuming the raw melody they'd been plucking out of the Nightingale.

Instead of answering, Aunna groused back, “I am so fucking sick of snow.”

He swiveled in his chair at that. Found her gripping the door frame in a tilted Y - lips pursed in a petulant pout, mud splattered across her front from hip to hairline - and chuckled through a cringe.

“Aww, kitten.”

She arched an eyebrow, then slid her palms down the jamb.

“I suppose you can have that one, pup,” she said, tone tipping toward sultry.

But then a chunk of snowy turf splatted to the hardwood in front of her, and she rolled her eyes so hard _he_ felt it. Martin let loose a belt of laughter as he set his guitar aside, and got to his feet.

“So what do you want to do?” he managed, picking up a nearby box of Kleenex and offering it out as he approached.

“Take a shower?” she replied, almost tartly, tugging a couple tissues free and using them to pluck debris from her cheek.

“About the weather,” he clarified with a residual chuckle, crouching to mop up the mess.

She pondered a moment, then countered, “What’s your place like, right now?”

Martin canted his head toward the window. “More of this, unfortunately,” he advised. Winter was rare in Texorami, but when it happened, it covered the continent for a while. “What about south of here? Sydney? Or Rio?”

“Wildfires or monsoons, respectively,” she sighed. “Maybe a bit o’ revolution.”

He hummed regretfully. Then felt her digits run into his hair, and reflexively turned his gaze up at the touch. Her expression was thoughtful, with an edge of mischief.

“Can I take you someplace new?” she asked.

Martin rose. Aunna’s fingers briefly curled around the shell of his ear as he did; traced the hinge of his jaw in a lingering caress before falling away.

“You have my attention,” he said.

“It’s perfectly summer in Rjimswood right now,” she continued, eyes tracking when he reached out to pluck a clod of something from her hair.

The name wasn’t familiar. “Where’s that?”

No hesitation in her reply. “Eminence Bay.”

 _That_ name was. Martin’s eyes darted over to hers. “ _Really_?”

His voice lilted unexpectedly, and a slow smile spread across Aunna’s face when she heard it. Her hand reached up to take his, threaded their knuckles together as she stepped back into the hallway, and towed him along in front of her.

“Interested?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he replied emphatically, letting her guide him up the hall toward the master suite. Her willingness to risk their exposure felt curiously intimate however, prompting him to ask, “You don’t think it’ll get back to anybody, though? That you were with someone in Malwain?”

Her left shoulder rolled in a dismissive shrug. “The only one who _might_ find out is a bit distracted by something going on in Garnath at the moment, so no, I don’t.” Her smile went sly then; a little jibing. “Besides, Malwain isn’t exactly _small_ , Marty. I know places there that won’t know me.”

His lips thinned in a lighthearted frown, taking the jab about his renown in Texorami as intended. She made a half-turn in front of him as she rounded them toward the en suite; kept hold of his hand, and directed it toward the buttons of her shirt. He chuckled, casually thumbing them open, and slid the garment off when she stopped in front of the shower.

“All you had to do was ask,” he mumbled against the bared skin of her shoulder.

“Consider this me asking,” she responded, her own fingers working the zip of her jeans.

She unrepentantly ground her ass against him as she shucked them off, taking her knickers down in the same movement. Then she balanced like a flamingo, and used one hand to finish stripping while the other started the faucet. Martin stepped back, and slid the muddied clothes toward the laundry chute with his foot. Aunna shot him a churlish look over her shoulder as she tested the temperature.

“Why are you still dressed?”

He gave her a bemused smile, eyebrows climbing. “Oh, so _that’s_ how we’re playing today?”

She huffed, turning back to the shower. “Who’s playing? Washing my hair will go faster if you help me get all the shit out of it on the first try.”

With that, she stepped inside and closed the glass door. He considered less than a beat, then pulled his shirt off overhead.

And she was right. Washing her hair _did_ go faster. Even if she blew him while he did it.

He spent the saved time drilling her against the shower wall, because neither of them could resist the acoustics.

* * *

Aunna checked that the straps of Sagr's rug were tight and secure; left the door to his run open so he could come and go from the barn as he pleased, and tipped a couple bales of hay into the slow feeder to keep him entertained. Then she saddled her current training projects, and passed Martin the more stolid of the pair.

They mounted up out by the paddocks and set off east, the golden bay gelding trotting alongside her for as long as the fenceline would allow. He snorted indignantly when he reached the corner, neck craned and nostrils flared, ears pitched forward. She held out a hand on the way by, muttered at him in the desert dialect, and Sagr softened his rigid posture to lip her knuckles. She poked his nose in return, and it was all the reassurance he needed. He returned to the barn at a sedate jog.

Beside her, Martin looked thoughtful.

“He’s too distinctive,” she explained. “The Tribes don’t let horses go, and anyone in Malwain worth their Registry would know he’s one of theirs. He’d mark me out pretty fast.”

“So you promised to take him next time?”

Aunna felt herself startle, surprised and delighted. “You caught all that?”

Martin chuckled. “Hardly,” he said. “One word in three, maybe. Just enough to extrapolate.”

She was impressed nonetheless. “Still, not bad. Deigan’s a rough one to stumble through, if you haven’t learned it immersively.” Even with her ear for linguistics, it’d still taken her more than six months of living in the Ma’k Deig to become fluent in just _one_ of their dialects, and she’d been quite content to settle for that in the half-century since.

But then he responded with “It’s a good thing we’re not going to Deig’a, then”, in Malwainese, and Aunna’s mare skittered sideways into the slush when her rider cried out an unexpected peal of laughter.

“Oh, honey, no,” she eventually managed, shaking her head with an _I’m so embarrassed for you_ look as she brought her mount back under control. “We can work on that if you want, but Malwain’s been part of the GC for a few generations now. Everyone can speak Thari.”

She watched him play back what he’d said in his head; saw his face twist, perplexed, when he was _certain_ he’d gotten the words right. She moved her mare forward again, briefly leaned over in one stirrup to press her lips to his cheek as she fell in beside him, and took the sting out of her reaction by adding,

“You didn’t say anything _wrong_. It was more _how_ you said it.” When his eyes narrowed further and he tilted his head querryingly, she elaborated, “Considering the situations I tend to break it out for, it makes sense that some of your diction might be a bit .. heated.”

His expression blanked in dawning realization, then he was laughing and blushing at the same frequency. “Jesus, can you imagine? I could get stabbed with a hatpin, ordering a glass of water like that.”

Aunna laughed, because it wasn’t entirely inaccurate, and brought the Pattern to bear as they entered the treeline; nudged their horses into a canter up the Path to Texorami for a bit before she started making manipulations of her own.

The ground began a steady shift in elevation, from rolling foothills to obvious inclines. Trees turned more coniferous, thickened at their bases, elongated their trunks and widened their canopies. The snow disappeared, replaced by patches of wildflowers shooting up rebelliously in slanted shafts of light. The air warmed but remained pleasantly cool as the path curved upward, narrowed to something barely worth the title, and became cut across with thick, step-like roots.

They were reduced to a walk for some time then, picking their way through a series of steepening switchbacks around deep, jagged crags in the earth. It was a different route than she was used to, leading them up into the range of Eminence Ridge rather than the flats of the Buckden Peninsula, and took a bit of concentration to achieve the desired effect. After they’d been climbing in silence a while though, Aunna turned to check behind her.

“You ok back there?” she asked, making the switch to Thari.

Martin gave her a thumb’s up. “Just admiring the view,” he replied in kind. Then swallowed, and gaped his jaw in an obvious effort to force his ears to decompress.

Aunna huffed a laugh as she faced forward again, and resumed her manipulations.

“What’s the phrase?” she asked rhetorically. “‘You ain't seen nothin' yet’?”

But she wasn’t above sauntering in the saddle for his viewing pleasure as the terrain became less treacherous; letting her hips roll loosely and thighs grip tight until she heard him clear his throat in a particular way.

“Tease,” he muttered, faux irritated.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she countered, just as flatly.

* * *

Eventually the ground leveled out, and the path widened enough that they were able to ride abreast again. Aunna dropped the Image and kicked her feet out of the stirrups, rolled her ankles a few times before letting her legs dangle loose. After a few strides, Martin followed suit. She glanced over to observe, then met his gaze with a smile.

“Like that one?” she asked, tilting her chin at the gelding.

“Seems a sensible fellow,” Martin replied. “What’s his name again?”

“His papers say Arctic Blast, but I’ve been calling him George.”

Martin leaned over a bit in the saddle. Took in the sleek, carrot-coloured coat and bald white face; the thick-crested neck and broad jowls; the tiny ears and huge, caramel-coloured eye. He nodded.

“He looks like a ‘George’.”

She gestured at the horse, face wide in a wordless effusion of _Right?_ , and Martin clapped the gelding’s neck in a companionable way. It was like slapping a concrete block. The animal barely flinched.

“He’s yours, if you want him.”

Martin blinked at her, caught off guard by the unexpected offer. “Didn’t Torrance come try him out last weekend?”

Aunna’s right shoulder rose and fell between them. “Would rather give him to you.”

Surprise turned to curiosity, and he looked at the chestnut beneath him again, considering. He knew she’d never gift him something unsound or unsafe, but wondered-

“She really liked him,” Aunna admitted, cutting into his thoughts. “But I do, too. He’s smart, and sturdy; doesn’t shrink from a challenge if asked to tackle it. Not much zip, but has stamina for days and courage in reserve…” She trailed off a moment, eyes moving from horse to rider, then back out along the path. “Honestly I’ve been looking for something like him for a while. You could use a proper mount, and now that you’re up there I think he’d be a good fit.”

Martin had to admit, the horse was definitely a rock. Where her mare still looked a bit winded after the climb, nostrils dilated and grey coat darkened with sweat as she continued to startle at every unfamiliar sound, George was barely breathing hard, and his almost comically small ears were flopping to either side of his head in complete docility.

“Plus he gets along with Sagr,” she added as an afterthought. Martin laughed. Her mare crow-hopped in place. George flicked an ear.

“And the truth comes out,” he jibed, knowing it would be received for the joke it was; was validated when she flipped him an obscene gesture with mirthful eyes in return, the grey still jigging beneath her.

But there was something in her words that struck Martin as a little sentimental, and inspired him to press with an offhand comment.

“He reminds you of someone,” he ventured.

Aunna nodded absently, finally bringing the mare back to a walk. “A little, I suppose.” She glanced at George again, a wistful cast to her expression. “They don’t look the same _at all,_ but yeah.”

There was a hazy memory in his head of her telling him about a Malwainese Cob named Dervish, who'd been more nanny than pet and tolerated so much shit he should’ve been Sainted (or the equine version of). A prismacolour portrait of them drawn by her mother hung in her office — his heavy black-and-white head just above her upturned and grinning teenage face, muzzle resting gently on her forehead with upper lip distended, as though giving her a kiss. That she put this horse in the same light was endearing, and made Martin’s answer simple.

“Ok,” he nodded, combing absently through the gelding’s short, slightly bushy mane. His toe turned out to tap against hers. “Thank you,” he concluded when she looked at him, lifting his feet back into the irons before leaning toward her.

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a smile. Then puckered, and met him halfway.

* * *

The Village of Rjimswood was an idyllic sprawl of cottages and resorts that stretched picture-perfect from the steep north face of Eminence Ridge, down to the icy blue waters of Eminence Bay. As they trotted from the treeline Martin couldn’t help but let out a low, appreciative sound when he saw it. Beside him, Aunna smiled.

“Told you,” she said, slowing to a walk so he could take in the unobstructed view.

He nodded, rapt. “Yes, you did.”

High Summer had turned the valley into a brilliant cascade of cobalt and malachite, streaked with swaths of indigo and gold. Their path curled an easy downward slope along the ridge, and as he observed the slow panorama the fingers of his fret hand started chording out a subconscious composition against his thigh: verse, chorus, verse, bridge. It felt instrumental — dulcimer, maybe steel guitar, backed with strings (George Martin, not Phil Spector), little bit of percussion-

“What’s that you’re humming?”

Martin glanced over. Caught her eye, and gave a small shrug. “Not sure yet.”

Aunna’s attention flicked down to his fingers, still twitching a refrain of the music in his head. “Play it for me later?”

The eyebrow she flashed when she met his gaze was a little wicked. He tilted his head in ascent, euphemism dripping from his voice.

“Of course. You know how much I appreciate your feedback.”

She grinned, pure and bright, and the unfettered joy behind it threw into sharp relief how much he loved her — how sure he was that she loved him too, only she hadn’t figured it out yet. Which was fine, really. He was patient, and they were practically immortal. He could wait for her to get there on her own; use actions over words to pave the way, and just enjoy the journey in the meantime.

It’d be worth it, he suspected, when she finally put it all together.

He watched her gather her stirrups, head tilting to indicate a small fork in the path, and they picked up an easy trot to merge onto a much busier avenue.

As promised, the weather was perfectly summer - warm but airy - and since she’d suggested that he dress ‘light Texorami’ (which he’d correctly taken to mean trousers and button-down), Martin happily unbuttoned his collar and rolled his cuffs up over his forearms to take it all in. He felt an ease settle across his shoulders at how familiar this place presented itself in the look of those around them. No zeppelins overhead, of course, and even the commercial vehicles were drawn by horses a far cut above anything he’d ever find in Port Laskill. But if not for the sheer amount of green, the absence of high tech was only peripherally odd, similar to how he felt visiting any of the inland mining collectives.

The other riders were courteous, amiable; quick to make eye contact and offer up smiles, or tip a hat as they seamlessly navigated around one-another. They passed decoratively carved plinths directing visitors toward Helbour Caverns, Uisgapă Falls, and Picstùc Point, and he didn’t realize that he was adopting a posture - subconsciously mimicking the men around him - until he caught Aunna giving him a smirking side-eye. Except _she_ was sitting a bit straighter than usual too, which he didn’t hesitate to call out with a head-to-toe glance of his own. 

“Habit,” she laughed, and shook herself out a little as she did. “What’s your excuse?”

Martin shrugged. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” he replied, feigning coy. “How’s _that_ for an interesting role-reversal?”

Ten minutes earlier, that response would’ve earned him a put-upon eyeroll, or an equally suggestive rebuttal. Now she shot him an inscrutable expression, and it was enough of a turn around to remind him that Malwain was _not_ Texorami, and he should probably get clarification on a few social things before he figuratively stepped in it. He eased back from the innuendo and gave her a quick, apologetic grimace. Her expression immediately softened in a manner that said ‘no harm done’, and she signaled left with two pointed fingers.

“This way,” she said, redirecting her mare toward the junction marked Zecemìle Springs. With a low click of his tongue, he sped George up to clear the intersection, then patted the gelding’s shoulder as he caught up and fell into stride with the mare, who was finally worn out enough to stroll on a loose rein.

Their path was wide and mildly upward-sloping, but lightly populated in the manner of an extended driveway. The lawn to either side was a scattershot of lavender and goldenrod amid the green, dotted with steaming pools and cabins of varying size. It was cut over with a network of immaculately manicured foot paths, weaving an elegant fractal en route to the Lodge, which sprawled across the end of the drive like a lover in repose — all gentle curves and organic edges, a slow arc spread out in a waiting embrace at the base of the distant foothills.

He saw Aunna’s hand dip into her saddlebag as they moved farther from the avenue, and reflexively dug the lighter out of his pocket in response; palmed it when she flipped open her slim wooden humidor and held it where he could draw two. She accepted one with her lips as the case was tucked away for safekeeping, and took advantage of the flame when he held it between them; dropped her feet out of the irons again as she sat up, and took a long drag. He followed suit, flipping the lighter shut and returning it to his pocket to close out a well-practiced choreography, and the silence between them was companionable, tensionless. Still, Martin wasn’t entirely surprised when she interrupted it with a casual,

“So what’s on your mind?”

He let out a self-deprecating huff, cigarette flagging as he drew around it.

“The fact that my social studies on the Golden Circle were rudimentary at best,” he replied. When her perplexed expression told him she was not following, however, he backtracked a little and started over.

“Assume I know half as much about the GC as you currently think I do,” he confessed, “then halve that again, and tell me - on a scale of Austen to Texorami - what level of propriety am I working with here?”

Aunna’s face performed a curious contortion, something amused but also vaguely offended defining her features.

“Whatever gave y— We’re not _prudes_ , Marty,” she chuckled, bemused. “We’re not _repressed_. We’re just…”

A moment to gather her thoughts was couched in a draw from her cigarette (and he wondered if she realized Malwain was always ‘we’, whereas Amber was usually ‘they’), then,

“We’re brought up to understand that while sex is meant to be pleasurable, it really doesn’t need to be an exhibition, so excessive PDA can be a bit scandalous. But Tristan’s openly courted men and women since he was nineteen without any of them becoming social pariahs for it.” She gave Martin a plaintive brow. “Does that help?”

And it did, so he nodded as much, but still hedged a little in asking, “Just to be clear, though: I didn’t tread a line back there, on the avenue?”

Her mare only snorted when Aunna barked out a laugh this time.

“Is _that_ what this is about?” she managed after a moment, rewarding the grey’s lack-of-reaction with a pat on the neck. “You worried someone overheard your double-entendre, and their delicate sensibilities were wounded?”

He felt the need to repeat: “Rudimentary. At. Best.” No heat involved. Just honesty. And humor.

“Jesus,” she chuffed. “You must’ve thought LA was a _serious_ rebellious phase, once you figured out who I was.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t?” His tone was clearly calling ‘bullshit’. She rolled her eyes, caught out.

“Fine, maybe a little,” she conceded. Then, “Don’t sweat it, Marty,” she assured. “If anything you earned some passing respect. We love wordplay, and that was prime.”

“Then why did you look so flat, after?” he prodded. “Because I was braced for a glorious comeback, but you just…”

He waved a hand in front of his eyes, nonplussed, and confronted by it directly like this, she actually pinked a little. It was such a rarity Martin lost a moment to basking, thus missing the front end of-

“-stracting, so by the time I had a coherent response lined up I’d missed my window.” She shrugged, then shot him a sideways glance and dropped her voice low. “‘It’d be a pleasure to take you ‘round the gallops later’,” she concluded, raising a coy eyebrow. “In case you wondered.”

It was a solid rebuttal, and Martin chuckled appreciatively through a slanted grin, tamping out his cigarette against the lifted heel of his boot before tucking the remains into the outside pocket of his saddlebag; saw her execute a similar maneuver from his periphery, another well-adopted dance. When she passed him a glance after, he indicated the approaching Lodge with a nod, and voiced one last question.

“So am I calling you ‘Kate’, or..?”

She tilted her head thoughtfully, going a bit inward, then asked in return, “Do you prefer that to ‘Aunna’? Because either works, really. It’s only my surname that’d be problematic.”

Martin made his decision without deliberation.

Because _that_ was _permission_. Her brightening expression told him so.

* * *

She signed for an overnight stay in one of the single-room cabins as ‘Anna Keene’; secured stalls at the nearest barn for their horses under the same, and leaned back against the desk with her face to the sun as the Registrar slid the ledger over for Martin to check in.

The only other time she’d visited Zecemìle Springs had been shortly after her seventh birthday — a week all told, with her mother, her Aunts Dahlia and Lily, two-year-old Tristan, a passel of cousins aged three to six, and (for a few days at the end) Mirelle. It had been a fun trip, parts of it still so indelible in her memory that if she closed her eyes to take in the smell of the springs, the distant cacophony of rolicking children on the other side of the building, she half expected to hear Miri shrieking up the boards toward her at any moment, wielding a pail of ice water she’d nicked from someone’s champagne service.

“Aunna.”

Martin’s voice was low, and very nearby. She opened her eyes already looking toward him, a nostalgic smile pulling at her lips, and made a permissive sound.

“All good?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, holding out a hand for him to take.

His fingers twined with hers, and gently tugged her upright. “Do you want to grab something to eat before we settle in, or go unpack first?”

She considered, rather than giving a canned response. The dichotomy of having him _here_ \- so close to Home, but still secreted away - was doing unexpected things to her. She was feeling possessive in a way that made her want to pay attention to him, maybe seduce him a little by giving him what he wanted without being asked for a change — specifically, a ‘nice normal day’ of doing touristy things as foreplay.

She coiled around his arm, and steered him toward the dining room.

“Today, I'm going to introduce you to brânză de bulz and isbean gogoși,” she smiled. “As god is my witness, you may never be satisfied by a Full English again.”

He laughed, and let her tow him along, and in the broader sense it was not unlike other spontaneous resort-based trips they’d taken together. The Lodge was a near-perfect cross-section of life’s stages, filled with courting lovers and honeymooners; with clusters of family groups and their gaggles of kids; with empty nesters enjoying rediscovered freedom, and the occasional elderly couple reminiscing the decades of shared life between them. Fitting in as another pair of tourists was a simple role to assume.

Except it _wasn’t_ just another resort-based trip. It was the two of them in Malwain - something she’d been turning over in the back of her mind since her first visit to Texorami - and even though Eminence Bay wasn’t the Buckden, it was still an example of the culture she was proud to be part of. So Aunna dropped into her native tongue to give Martin a more conversational take on its cadence, and used the time over brunch to flesh out his understanding of her home nation-

(which, granted, she knew fuckall about the Coral Reach beyond its generalized affiliation with Rebma, so it’s not like she could fault his tutors for ignoring half of his heritage by concentrating his education on their _own_ allied nations)

-only he wasn't _quite_ as uneducated as he thought. It was just that the stuff he _did_ know was anecdotal, but in an endearingly secondhand way: like something carefully constructed from blueprints provided through a drunken game of telephone.

Honestly though, if Martin had one quality that continued to surprise her, it was how goddamn observant he could be. Never mind that he’d been piecing together castoff details since day one ( _“I dialled the operator, asked the listing for Kate Rozenberg in Topanga”_ ), and the fact that in moments of nostalgia she was much more likely to reminisce about time spent in Malwain than she _ever_ was to discuss Amber; he’d still managed to tuck away and string together a lot of delightfully trivial information over the years, thanks to her, and the reality of that made her weirdly giddy.

* * *

It was a short stroll from the Lodge to the barn, and from there to the one-room cabin she’d let for the night. They unpacked their saddlebags and changed into swimwear, eager to get into the spring-fed lagoon out back and finally shake off the last of the cold they’d come here to leave behind.

They luxuriated in the water for a while, exchanging languid kisses and lingering touches under the afternoon sun before she stroked him to a slow, near-silent completion on the mossy bank, emboldened by the seclusion of their rental but still swallowing all of his sounds for good measure. He gave as good as he got, and even though she could have cheated and made herself mute, moaning into a mouthful of his shoulder as she pulsed around his fingers yielded such wonderfully raunchy murmurations in return, she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

They righted their clothing and dozed for a spell, then showered and dressed and wandered back to the Lodge for dinner; stayed after dessert for the third act of the interactive Christie-esque murder mystery that had been the evening’s entertainment, then strolled hand-in-hand around the backside of the property. They stopped to resupply her cigarette cache from a Polk & Dunbar vendor; cozied up on a sofa by one of the outdoor bars to split a bottle of Helbour Gold, and had a second one bagged to take with them back to Keene.

The sun set behind the fjords on the other side of the bay, throwing out a glorious display of crimson and indigo as it went, and night came on with such a vibrant array of stars that Aunna was transfixed in watching Martin be entranced by the unfamiliar sky as they made their way back to the cabin.

She spent ages in strippig him down before easing him to the mattress — fingertips light over each exposed inch, lips glossing every plane. He was hot and heavy against his stomach, leaking and desperate as she knelt between his knees. She ran the pad of her thumb into the divot under the head, and he jerked in her grip with a sharp intake; made a strangled noise behind his teeth that could have been-

_“fucksweetheartyou’rekillingmehere”_

-any of the numerous pleas he tended to drop when she got like this; so intent on appreciating the feel of him beneath her hands, the aesthetic of his flushed skin and straining muscles, this naked embodiment of the trust they’d cultivated, that everything else faded to ambient noise.

“What was that, baby,” she cooed, thumb pressing in again.

She was rewarded with a stronger throb, a groaned ‘ohsweet _jesusfuck_ ’, and when a pearl of fluid ran down over her knuckle the sound she made in response was reverent. She locked eyes with him through her lashes, lifted it to her lips, and collected it on the tip of her tongue like ambrosia.

Martin lurched up and ran a hand into her hair, finally nudged one visual too far; curled his fingers across the base of her skull and licked into her eager mouth, intent to devour. Aunna allowed it for a beat or two, because he really was quite talented, but then her resistance became more than a token display, and he tempered his actions; ceded control back to her by asking, rather than demanding, that she come down to the mattress with him.

She acquiesced, stretching out atop him almost point-for-point as they kissed like every breath they took needed to be shared first. Eventually her knees bent to bracket his hips, and she was making slow gyrations against the member pinned between their pelvises, then rising up to slip him in…

It was a long, slow ride toward dawn.

* * *

The weather had warmed while they were away, and Sagr - notorious for worming out of his rugs - was sporting a crumbling patina of mud a half-inch thick as he galloped up the run to greet them. He snapped jealously at the grey on her way by, and Aunna admonished him with a sharp Deigan word but a gentle hand raised. The gelding heaved a sigh against her palm, then turned his attention on George, and perked up again. For his part, the chestnut flicked an ear and nickered.

They took some time in getting their horses fed and bedded down for the night, then Aunna dragged Sagr out for a grooming while Martin headed up to the house with their bags to check messages and start dinner. He heard her moving around upstairs a short time later, and shook his head with a chuckle. If she used a shortcut to the en suite to remove yet more muddy barn clothes and shower before dinner, he wouldn’t give her shit for sparing the hardwood.

He met her in the sitting room with spaghetti and garlic bread, an open bottle of merlot, and she curled up against him on the sofa in her flannel pants and soft grey sweatshirt to watch _WKRP,_ then pulled the afghan down over them for the Wednesday night movie that aired after.

They traded casual touches as they stored the leftovers and did the dishes. They turned down the blinds and checked the locks, then switched off the lights and ascended the stairs, her index finger hooked to his pinky. She brushed her teeth while he showered, then stripped down to cami and shorts before climbing into bed as he finished his nighttime routine.

Martin paused a moment in the door of the en suite, the curve of her form under the blankets framed by the lone rectangle of light. She was balled up on her left side, the comforter cocooned around her, and it was hard to keep himself from deflating a bit because god _dammit_ yesterday had been so good…

He knew that sometimes her pendulum overcorrected en route to equilibrium, though. And the fact that she hadn’t shut down completely - she’d been mostly present throughout the day; was turned toward his side of the bed now - told him she was untangling something more than wrestling with it at this point, and he’d be surprised if she was still in her own head come morning.

Martin switched off the light, and heard her shuffle beneath the blankets as he crossed to the bed. When he slid into his place, she reached for him immediately; wrapped around him in a familiar embrace, head pillowed on his chest. He curled his arms around her shoulders, and gave the ceiling a furrowed brow.

“You ok?” he asked.

The weighty pause was broken by a heavy breath. Then,

“There’s something going on, back in Amber,” she said. “Tristan was in MedCorps when he called, and he _said_ it was nothing serious-” she hastened to continue when he stiffened in concern “-but he looked _terrible_ , Marty. Just .. awful.”

 _‘The only one who_ _might_ _find out is a bit distracted by something going on in[Garnath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980609/chapters/63822952) at the moment_,’ she’d said, and clarity came with the memory. He voiced a hypothesis into the night; soft words, no judgment.

“You feel guilty for using it as an opportunity to take me to Malwain.”

“A little.”

He hummed. Then, “Do you want to go check on him?”

She exhaled mirthlessly. “No. He really is fine.” A small hesitation, and she added in a lower register, “Seeing him like that kicked some shit loose, though.”

Martin tilted his chin down to kiss her hair, and folded one arm back behind his head, giving her room to move away if she wanted. Her cheek burrowed into his pec as she settled into the adjusted position though, the arm crossing his torso sliding lower over his abdomen until her fingers were curling around his ribs, thumb resting against the raised ridge of scar tissue down his side. And he thought maybe she was calling it a night, preparing to sleep on it, when she asked,

“Did your tutors ever teach you about the Gheneshan War?”

Martin felt himself balk at the non-sequitur — thrown enough that it took a moment to fully grasp what she’d asked, then root around for an answer.

“Not really,” he said. “I know it had something to do with Weir, and that Rebma declared itself a Sanctuary Nation, although I don’t think anyone ever took us up on it.”

She huffed again, and he felt her smirk against his chest, then sober in fleeting humor. It was several lengthy beats before she finally came to some sort of decision, and landed on a starting point.

“Did they mention the Eradication of the Holdfény Collective?”

* * *

Before Aunna had drifted off that morning, she’d come to realize the lightness blooming behind her chest was more than ‘pleased’, bigger than ‘content’; that for the first time in a very long time, she was unequivocally _happy_ , and it felt _good_.

She’d woken a short time later with an aimless feeling of existential dread, brought on by her subconscious deciding to unpack shit in her sleep and remind her of how Captain Phipps had looked, when she’d seen him last — how violet his eyes, how crimson-streaked his face.

And yes Tristan looked bad, but he didn’t look _that_ bad. Her brother was fine. Her brain knew this. But her brain was also occasionally a bag of cats, and all day long they’d been yowling about what a horrible person she was for not stopping something that happened well outside of her control nearly a lifetime ago.

She was, quite frankly, fucking tired of carrying it.

So she told Martin about Ghenesh.

All of it. Even the stuff she’d been forced to omit from her official report to Command, in order to keep her shapeshifting a secret. Even the stuff she’d left out of her personal report to Oberon, when she’d resigned her commission a few weeks later. _Everything_.

Martin held her throughout. Continued to hold her afterwards. Was silent for several beats when she’d concluded, but the lazy slide of his fingertips against her bicep told her he was awake; just thinking. Finally,

“But you figured it out, eventually,” he said. “Lucky for me.”

She knew he was offering many things in that - sincerity, levity, grace - and pressed a kiss to his chest in gratitude; snuggled in just that much closer, and thought that maybe her brother was onto something with all this ‘you should talk about your trauma’ stuff.

Martin's fingers curled through the hair at her temple, the action growing slow and heavy before stilling against her cheek as his breath drew out in sleep.

Lulled by the steady rhythm, Aunna was not far behind.


	2. Asleep to Our Latent Fuss

They bid farewell to 1981 with The Police in Edinburgh, and greeted 1982 with The Cars in San Bernardino. They dropped by Martin’s bungalow in Burbank for a few days after an Iggy Pop show at the Troubadour left them feeling nostalgic, and took a drive up Mount Lee to the Hollywoodland sign, determined to check something off their ever-evolving bucket list while they were in the area.

She sold the mare to an up-and-coming eventer with Olympic aspirations. Cut the girl a generous deal because they were a good match from the ground up, and Aunna thought she might want to take a break from rehoming racehorses for a while, now that she’d found what she’d been looking for. The decision proved a subtle liberation, and they killed a few weeks right after by packing Sagr and George around miscellaneous locations on Earth - Ayers Rock, Giant’s Causeway, Sleeping Bear, Machu Picchu - as well as heretofore unvisited parts of Texorami. Mostly though, they passed time between Keene and Port Laskill with a fluidity that made both places feel like Home, and settled easily into the domesticity that met them at either end.

As winter yielded to an early spring, Aunna exuded an aura of peace that felt fragile yet genuine, and Martin quietly resented the fact that she’d been so thoroughly conditioned to keep her secrets, she continued to shoulder their weight even after the King who’d ordered them was long gone. The night she’d laid bare her truth about Ghenesh, his heart had broken a little in lamenting what she might have been, if not for Oberon.

(Martin was no stranger to the lingering psychological damage a manipulative family member could do, though. His near-death encounter with Brand aside, he still dealt with shit his grandmother had inflicted on him during his childhood, and he’d had no contact with the Queen of Rebma in decades.)

All things being equal, his broadened view of Aunna’s past _did_ make it easier to shrug off those rare pre-dawn mornings when he woke up alone. Because he knew what it was to have a sleeping consciousness unexpectedly hock up a cerebral cud in need of immediate chewing, and would never begrudge her chosen coping mechanism of grooming horses and cleaning tack. His studio served much the same purpose as her barn, after all.

On those mornings, he would revert to a familiar pattern from their California past and leave her be, which more often than not resulted in her coming up for food sometime around noon with the issue sorted, or on its way to. They’d make lunch over the kind of inane jabber that brought her back to center: the lack of a standout in that year’s Derby field, whether the filmmakers meant _Cat People_ to be taken even remotely seriously…

And usually it turned out to be an esoteric jumble of brain junk that had tipped her off balance in the night, and once she figured _that_ out, everything was aces again. But occasionally the whole day would pass with her only halfway accessible, and they’d be in bed before whatever had been kicking around her skull finally came to heel enough that she felt she could present it to him (not for feedback; just to share it). And maybe there’d be sex afterwards, sweet and slow because she needed the contact and release, but most times they’d drift off to sleep buoyed by the trust inherent in her revelation, anchored by his unspoken love for her.

So it was a bit jarring, honestly, when Martin strolled down to the barn one early April afternoon, and Aunna wasn’t there. She’d scrawled a note on the chalkboard by the phone, though: ‘Back later’. With a little Kilroy in the corner. Sagr’s stall stood open and empty, his saddlerack barren.

While it struck him as unusual, it wasn’t exactly alarming. She’d mentioned Tristan a few times since whatever had happened to her brother in Garnath, and knew she felt she’d taken advantage of his brief hospitalization by making a clandestine trip to Rjimswood. Maybe they were catching up face-to-face for a change. In Malwain most likely, where her jeep would be a useless conveyance.

He returned to the house, eating the sandwich he’d been carrying down to her as he did. Passed the afternoon plunking around a couple new compositions, and trying to decide if Aunna was right about _The Blue Mask_ (in that “it’d be a really good album, if not for Lou Reed”).

When feeding time came and went with no sign of her, Martin ran through the evening routine on his own: picked George’s bedding and dropped down some hay before summoning him inside with a bit of grain, and closing the run door behind him. He brushed the chestnut off while he munched, and took a minute to prep Sagr’s stall for the night before he switched off the aisle lights, then walked back up the hill.

He heated some leftovers on toast, and poured himself a beer. Settled on the living room sofa, propped his socked feet on the coffee table, and flipped through the TV stations in search of something to eat by. Eventually he traded the empty plate for a cigarette, picked up his nearby twelve-string, and muted the television to resume a melody-in-progress; wholly unconcerned.

* * *

Leo Westwood had gotten married.

Tristan had essentially drunk-dialled her at some ungodly hour of the morning to tell her so, and wasn’t that a hell of a way to wake up.

Leo Westwood had gotten married. To a Begman woman 42 years his junior with an equine veterinary degree and possibly a mean right hook..?

Honestly, the news hadn’t shaken her all that much. Of the three of them, they’d all known Lord Balfax would be the first to take that leap. He was the last of the Westwood line - an only child born to aging parents who were both gone before he was thirty-five - and even though Amberites had longevity well beyond Shadow folk, compared to her and Tristan, Leo’s life was finite.

He’d still taken his time though, finding the right woman. And Aunna was genuinely happy for him.

No, it was something Tristan had said later in the conversation that had gotten under her craw. Something about the reason they’d not invited her was because it was all very spontaneous, so quick in fact they’d only just done it on the lawn at a pub in Southport, officiated by one of the Scarlet Acolytes from his task force.

_“Why the urgency?” she prodded, feigning scandalized. “Did Major Westwood forget to check his gear before deployment? Did he put that girl in The Family Way, T?”_

_Tristan barked, and took a swig of his beer before shaking his head. “No, he just wants to get a jump on things with his Estate. In case-”_

_He cut himself off. Shot her a guarded look behind his tankard that he tried to pass off as tipsy dismissal. She narrowed her eyes, clearly not buying it._

_“In case of what?”_

_He gave a small shrug and swirled the dregs of his stout, attention on the motion._

_“You know: ‘In case’.” His eyes flicked sideways to acknowledge her, “And it’s Lieutenant Colonel Westwood now, BT-dub.”_

_“Aww, he caught up to you again!” she cooed. “Bless.”_

_Her brother laughed only until she sobered._

_“Please don’t deflect, Tristan,” she requested. “In case of what?”_

_“Just .. in case.” The reiteration was soft, and she felt something in her brother shift; go a little melancholy, maybe wistful. “He’s making sure she’s properly provided for, ‘in case’ his incredibly high risk profession ever gets the better of him. Queueing up the harnesses and all that.”_

And _that_ was the moment.

The rest of their conversation was perfunctory and ended without fanfare, because _that_ was the moment she’d tuned out of Here, and into a directionless Elsewhere.

Leo Westwood had gotten married, and he was taking stock of his affairs ‘in case’.

That .. sparked something.

There was suddenly a roiling in her gut that felt like corkscrews and moths; a skittering twitch beneath her skin that made her want to jump and scratch and strike out.

Hard after it came the rushing urge to _goGoGO_ , and she snapped into motion.

Sagr’s saddle propped on her hip, his bridle slung over her shoulder, Aunna hesitated briefly on her way to his stall, and glanced up the moonlit hill toward the darkened house. She snatched up the chalk to scrawl ‘Back later’ on the board by the phone, then added a little illustration to soothe any sting Martin may feel from her unexpected departure.

Her horse danced as she tacked him up, keying into her energy and growing eager for a good hard run in spite of the early hour. Her motions were quick and efficient, automatic after a lifetime, and she murmured to him in Deigan as she worked. He was a barely-contained supernova when she mounted at the paddock gate, and directed him east into the treeline; was coiled tight and chomping the bit as she brought the Pattern to mind along the Path to Texorami.

She made three quick adjustments as the gelding crow-hopped in anticipation - flat straight, short grass, sunrise - then dropped her hands to his withers, and crouched forward.

“Uchmoq, Sagr.”

_Fly._

The gelding shot forward with a trumpeting snort, his massive strides soon swallowing the ground as he leveled out, stretching to his full extent within moments. Aunna kept low and gave him his head, aimed her eyes at the horizon and shifted them away from any sense of civilization; omitting instead of adding, riffling through Shadows like a flip book; no destination in mind, only a desire to move, and Sagr overjoyed to assist.

After a handful of minutes and immeasurable miles at a good clip, the gelding began to gear down on his own — neck arching with a playful strike now and again, or his back end twisting in a half-buck as his strident gallop became a lofting canter. Her admonitions were mild, because he wasn’t trying to unseat her so much as express happiness, and she was feeling much more centered for the blow-out. Eventually she slowed him to a jog, then a walk. The gelding heaved a sigh that rattled through his nose, and his head swayed side-to-side with his swinging gait, completely at ease.

His coat was brassy with sweat though, neck foaming where the reins had scrubbed, so Aunna summoned up a river over the next small rise, and aimed for it. She let the Image fade from mind then, and dropped her feet out of the irons, taking in their surroundings as they strolled — short yellow grass, stumpy mauve trees, pale cyan sky. The breeze was fragrant with yarrow and sweetweed, arid and slightly acrid with an undertone of mesquite smoke, and she made a thoughtful noise at its similarity to Hondo Canyon, if not for the complete lack of ‘canyon’.

When they reached the river, Sagr walked in up to his chest without hesitation, and dropped his head to take several long swallows. She leaned over in the saddle to cup some into her palm and splash it over her face; to scoop it into her mouth for a swish-and-spit before taking an actual drink, then sitting upright and wiping her palm on her jeans. The impromptu hellride had succeeded in working the tremble out from under her skin, cleared her head enough that she could start picking apart her feelings again, and now that she really stopped to examine them…

…she felt…

… _guilty?_

“What the fuck.”

Sagr lifted his head at her voice; cocked an ear and directed a maple-hued eye her way, water dribbling from his whiskery chin. She stroked his neck absently. After a beat, he stretched down for another drink.

So it _wasn’t_ about Leo. At least, not really. Because they’d long evolved past any lingering awkwardness, and neither of them had ever felt _guilty_ for their brief collegiate tryst.

And it wasn’t about Tristan withholding information on whatever he was dealing with in Garnath, which she was sure of now and would have to confront him on later.

 _‘Queueing up the harnesses’_ however was a very specific adage for her brother to choose, when taken in context. It’s what you did before threshing — disassembling every buckle and strap, checking for wear and reinforcing stress-points, assuring each piece was in safe working order so nobody got hurt by a completely preventable-

The corkscrews and moths were back. She grimaced wryly, and huffed a deprecating exhalation with the onset of clarity.

Guilt. And failure. A familiar combo now that she pinned it down, if coming at her from an unfamiliar avenue this time.

Beneath her, Sagr began pawing at the riverbed with every intention of dropping into the water, so Aunna gathered his reins and directed him upstream to a shallower footing instead, then over the bank on the other side before he got any more bright ideas. The gelding checked his stride and craned his head as they crested, nostrils flaring as he scented something ahead. She caught a whiff of it right after - scalded hair, meaty undertone - and followed his eyeline to see a thin curl of smoke rising up from a cluster of scrub brush they were about to pass.

Glancing down on the way by revealed a channel in the peat between the shrubs, a jagged six-inch divot weaving a path perhaps two feet wide and six feet long. It glowed faintly magenta in the gloaming, and the remains of a young coney were charring where it’d fallen just short of the edge. As they passed, the corpse drew down to ash and blew away in the breeze. Sagr snorted and pulled to the side, neck bowed. Aunna ran a hand along the crest of it, then lifted her feet into her stirrups and squeezed him into a canter to focus his mind elsewhere. Mystical shit wasn’t her carousel to ride, and she was a long way from anyplace that mattered (to her) to have much concern for a disintegrating rabbit.

A few strides onto the plain, she brought the Pattern to bear for the journey back to Keene and concluded that, in hindsight, she should’ve done better by Martin.

Because there’d been a moment, maybe a month or so into their acquaintance, when she _had_ considered giving him her trump. Only acquiring one would have meant a lot of questions from people she didn’t care to see, or landed her in debt with someone for the favour of drawing a new one. So she’d dismissed the idea and thought no more of it until she’d been summoned back to Amber for the lockdown, at which point she'd kinda regretted not putting forth the effort — a feeling that twisted hard the next time she saw him, bleeding to death in the backseat of a station wagon because (as it turned out) Brand had tried to kill him through a trump call he wasn’t expecting, and didn’t know how to break.

So there it was, the root of her spiral. It was a bittersweet relief to find, since all she could do at this point was apologize to him for being a shit Mentor back then, and try to do better going forward.

Chances were he’d just wave it off as ancient history, in the end, but she’d feel better for having said something.

* * *

The world beyond the blinds was dark when he felt Aunna’s fingers run into his hair, combing it back from his forehead and over his crown. Martin tilted his chin up with a sigh of acquiescence as she bent down above him.

“Hey there,” he croaked, the angle of his neck over the backrest crackling his words.

She didn’t speak.

She kissed him. Thick and demanding, the inverse angle making it all the more desperate, and his body responded immediately; cock firming up as she climbed over the back of the sofa, tongue rolling in his mouth, and breath heavy on his cheek.

He gripped the guitar by the neck to blindly set it aside as she settled into a straddle across his lap, grinding down with intent as she did. She gathered the hem of his shirt in her fists, Stillwater’s faces bunching and distorting across his pecs as she rucked the garment up over them. The kiss broke with a gasp (hers), and she wasted no time in scooping the tee up over his head when he instinctively raised his arms to accommodate. She wrenched her own shirt off the same way, and dropped both behind the sofa.

She seized his wrists, brought his hands up to cup her breasts, encouraged them to squeeze, to pinch tight around her nipples. Her gaze caught his, all fire and need, and the _ache_ it set off in him was ferocious. She lunged into kissing him again; broke off just as rough, but barely moved.

“Ruin me.” Her voice was brittle against his lips, on the verge of cracking.

Martin reeled back as gently as he could, one brow cocked.

“I need you to define that,” he stated, no-nonsense. “‘Cause I’m fucking hard as hell right now, and having a _very_ difficult time reading you.”

As an emphatic movement (and to brake-check their ramp-up for a quick discussion), he rolled his denim-contained erection beneath her. Aunna sat up in response, and huffed with affected irritation.

“Well shit. If you’re not interested,” she retorted, preparing to dismount.

She got as far as rising onto her knees before Martin pulled her back toward him with arms folded around her thighs. He licked a trail along the line of her abdomen as she lurched in his grasp; ducked his head to nip the flesh below her navel when her motion reached its apex, and she let out a high-pitched sound of shock and amusement, swatting his shoulder.

“What the fuck are you watching?” she deflected, slithering down into his lap again, arms draped across his shoulders and over the sofa, head craned back toward the television.

Martin’s attention briefly shifted past her, and he gave a noncommittal hum, because he really hadn’t been watching _anything_ since the nightly news ended. After a moment, she followed it with,

“Are they riffing on ‘Rumplestiltskin’?”

“Looks like,” he replied. “Do you really want me to ‘ruin’ you?”

“Maybe?”

Aunna’s gaze slid to meet his by degrees, her face landing well before her eyes. And Martin held it when it got there; unflinching, imploring. She sighed, and let go a tension across her shoulders that caused her whole frame to sag against him. Forehead tucked into his neck, nose across his throat, she took several slow, deep breaths that compelled him to wrap his arms around her in a soothing embrace; his hands to smooth her spine twice, then settle.

He loosened. He waited.

“I felt guilty,” she began. “When you came back with this, I felt guilty.”

Aunna ran a hand down his chest, her fingers eventually tracing the scar along his ribs, and if he'd put money on what he thought was on her mind, he’d have lost a mint. His brow furrowed. But before he could ask _Why would you?,_ she was speaking again.

“I should’ve found you a spare trump. I should’ve taught you how they worked; how to block them, how to break a contact. But I didn’t. And now…”

…now he was trump-averse, and close proximity to an active contact sent him into cold sweats; made his pulse accelerate uncomfortably, because someone had tried to kill him through one.

“I’m sorry, Marty,” she murmured into his neck.

“Hey,” he soothed, slightly off-put by the display. His arms resumed their stroking motion. “Do you remember when I was finishing up my studio, and you told me I owed you nothing?”

Aunna lifted her head. Leaned back just far enough to meet his gaze.

“This is different,” she said, with dire conviction.

He barely bit back a laugh, hands settling on her hips. “It really isn’t, though.”

She tried to look incensed, so he ploughed forward.

“Did you _know_ someone would find a way to construct a trump of me, whether or not I was physically present for the Artist?” He let the words come out hard; put a bit of his dominant voice behind it, and squeezed her flesh in his hands with the point. “Did you know that, when they _did_ , they’d use it to try to murder me?”

Her wide-eyed expression was everything he needed to cement what he already believed. Martin smiled ruefully.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied before she could. “Devious as our kin can be, there was no way to predict something like that, Aunna. So in regard to this,” he reached across to curl one hand over hers, cupping them together around his scarred torso, “I have never, nor will I _ever_ , put blame on you. Savvy?”

Martin watched her countenance morph a few times at that - wry contradiction / wary speculation / bemused acceptance - and felt privileged that she let her guard down enough to allow it, knowing how well she could mask emotion when she chose to.

After a small moment, she made a slow blink and shook her head.

“I’ve had a very strange couple of hours,” she finally supplied. “And honestly, there’s more noise than substance in my head right now. So if we could maybe circle back to my original request…”

There was a sultry tilt to her voice, at the end. Martin played with it by tipping his head toward her neck in return — an old, familiar game.

“This one, you mean?” he asked, a blatant tease.

“If it’s all the same,” Aunna fired back, arching into the press of his lips, “I’d rather you give me rugburn, and remind me I’m Here.”

Her fingers raked into his long sandy locks, and clutched at his scalp. Martin mouthed wetly at her throat.

“Done.”

He shoved the coffee table aside with a kick before shifting to the edge of the sofa; crossed his arms over her back and sank to his knees, bearing them both to the floor. She wriggled her hands between them, fingers popping the button and tugging down the zip so by the time her shoulders made contact with the rug she was already inching out of her jeans. He tugged them off almost roughly as she crawled backwards on her elbows; tossed them aside before dropping down onto his stomach and hooking her knees over his shoulders, bracketing her hips with his forearms and burying his tongue between her thighs, lathing over her wet crease before parting it to delve inside, to probe and pull at her sensitive places.

Aunna bucked up with a sharp intake, hands fisting into his hair as she directed three languages worth of filth toward the ceiling. He wrapped his arms around her thighs, and wrangled her back to the ground; pulled her close with a growl and locked her down, pinned her open with his fingertips and nipped her exposed nub before sliding across it with the flat of his tongue and she _roared-_

_“sweetfuckingCHRISTMartin!”_

-before dropping yet another string of multi-lingual epithets. He worked her over until she was quivering on the edge and hissing behind her teeth, hands pawing at his head rather than clawing into it, before he loosened his hold and sat up to unbutton his incredibly uncomfortable jeans.

She propped up on her forearms, flushed and glistening, sheened in sweat. Her attention dropped down when he rose up on his knees and parted the flaps, shorts tenting freely in front of him. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband, and slid the items off in one motion; sat on the edge of the sofa just long enough to strip down, and couldn’t resist giving himself a few heavy pulls under her attention as he pitched the clothes aside.

“Is this what you’re after, sweetheart?” he asked.

Her eyes darkened. She licked her lower lip to pull it between her teeth.

She lifted her gaze to his, and stared at him with ravenous need.

She slowly dropped her mouth open, and tilted her chin up at a beckoning angle.

The image she presented burned him up, and he gripped the root of himself tight. Cycled a deep breath before dropping back to his hands and knees, and crawling his way up her body. She returned the kiss he met her with, but soon canted her head in a wordless request to move along; braced her weight on one elbow to encourage him into a kneeling position over her, so he hovered at level; then settled back and fixed him with a wanton stare through lowered lashes.

He cradled the back of her head in one hand, fingers curled into the hair at the base of her scalp, and slowly fed himself into her open mouth. Her lips closed around him when he nudged against her soft palate, her eyes slid shut with a moaning sigh, and just like that she _surrendered_.

“Fuck, Aunna, you’re so goddamn much.” The words were tumbling out before he’d thought about speaking, caught up in the sensation of her lips and tongue and _throat fuck that was her throat_ as he worked her over his length. “So fucking gorgeous taking me like this _christ look at you_.”

He pressed the pad of a thumb into the bow of her lip, ran it down and across the seam where it slid over him, a soft dry point in the spit-slick friction. Her eyes were blissfully rolled up when she fluttered them open; took a moment to focus on him before she made a deliberate draw, cheeks hollowing out as one eyebrow rose in a menacing arch, reminding him that her compliance was a gift. His hand clamped down at the base of his cock again, and he groaned.

She softened her oral ministrations then, relaxing her mouth and allowing it to flood with a mixture of saliva and pre-come before swallowing both down and suckling as a consequence. He gasped, and resumed a slow thrust purely in reflex.

“I’m .. fuck, I’m…” The hand in her hair gripped tight, and Martin squeezed his balls with the other this time, pulling himself back from the edge. He met her gaze when it flicked up, and worked his fingers against her scalp. “Tell me how you want it.”

Her reply was to close her eyes again. To lock her hands around the backs of his knees and slack her jaw, inviting. It kicked the breath right out of him, and he came in a rush, the world actually whiting out for a moment as he watched his release pulse across her waiting tongue. Aunna whined, and rolled her hips against air in search of her own finish until Martin reached back and plunged two fingers into her; pressed down on her clit with the heel of his palm as he did, and she arched to orgasm.

Eventually her elbows buckled, and his softening member fell from her mouth. It dribbled residue across her cheek as it did, and she swallowed as she sagged to the floor, shuddering through the aftershocks. She ran her hands up the outside of his thighs, squeezed his ass, and then stretched her arms up over her head in languid repose, casually wiping her face with the inside of her bicep. Martin carefully swung his leg over her, and sat at her side; sucked his fingers clean as he propped himself up on his hip, then slid a palm across her trembling abdomen.

“Better?” he asked.

Her eyes slitted open meeting his, and she hummed with a pleased little grin. “Yes, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, tipping forward to trade lazy kisses until she put a hand on his chest.

“Did you eat the meatloaf?” she asked. He shook his head.

“The pasta,” he replied. She beamed.

“Excellent. I’m starving.”

Aunna sat up. Martin flopped over onto his back with a low laugh.

“I see how it is,” he smirked. “That’s all I am to you anymore. An appetizer.”

“Aww, honey. That ain’t true,” she purred. “You know you’re also dessert.”

A quick kiss, then she rose with sinuous grace; reached up into a sculpted stretch, drawing his eye along the line of her.

Aunna tossed him a wink when she dropped back onto her heels, breasts jiggling enticingly.

Martin folded his arms behind his head, and appreciated every moment of it.

* * *

Three days later, it happened again.

No note this time. And the ‘secret drawer’ in her bureau was empty.

He went to Texorami. Left a message on the fridge saying as much, and killed a few hours playing cards with Rex and the guys before their gig; told them Kate was off doing her own thing, and if he was in any way unconvincing in his casual delivery, nobody seemed compelled to question it.

He sat in for a set when invited. Declined tying one on with them after though, and headed up to the loft instead.

When she crawled into bed with him that night, he caught a faint hint of glycerine and graphite beneath the lavender of her shampoo.

“Aunna?”

“Just keeping up appearances, baby,” she cut across him with a yawn, tone mild and sleepy.

Martin sighed, and wrapped her close in reply.

She was out in moments.

He watched the stars creep across the skylights toward dawn for some time before finally succumbing to his own slumber.


	3. Flashing Teeth of Brass

_Her hair was aquamarine. It made her green eyes gleam under the porch light when he opened the door._

_“Busy?” she asked, in a tone that said he’d_ _really_ _enjoy himself if the answer was ‘no’._

_Martin shook his head: once, nonchalant._

_“Good.”_

_She was across the threshold and on him with a voracity that took him back a step before he was returning her kiss with fervor. She kicked the door shut behind her; fingers already working their way under his shirt to grip along his sides, knead between his ribs._

_“I want you to fuck me until I can’t move,” she growled against his lips, teeth nipping into the upper one. “Savvy?”_

_And he was so hard already, fuck, he’d never had someone turn him on so fast. He twisted a fist into her hair, and pulled back until she met his gaze._

_“Is that all you want?” he asked, letting his voice dip low. Because he could smell something sharp and earthy under the neutral scent of her soap that made this encounter feel a bit dangerous. Combustible._

_So it was very interesting to him when her first response - barely a flicker, practically a scream - was to yield just a bit._

_But then she snarled, and took a bite at his forearm._

_“Turn me inside out, Martin,” she hissed. “I want to feel you for days.”_

* * *

Cordite. Gunsmoke. That's what he’d smelled, back then.

It’s what he smelled again now, beneath the subtle fragrance of her shampoo.

“Aunna?”

He felt her draw a waking breath, and then her ass wriggled unambiguously against his dream-inspired hard-on.

“Are you gonna put that thing in me,” she asked, her words teasingly low, “or just rub off for another hour?”

Martin chuckled dryly.

“Can’t I do both?” He made a slow thrust; felt himself ride smoothly up along the crease between her cheeks.

“Tease,” she huffed.

“Could do that, too.” He repeated the movement, and slid his hand across her stomach as he did. “Are you going to talk to me, after?”

“We’re talking now,” she breathed back. “And we can _keep_ talking, but I don’t know how _insightful_ it’ll be.”

He stilled behind her. Pulled his hand away from its slow creep southward, and lifted his head from the pillow. Aunna paused, then turned her chin slightly to meet his gaze over her shoulder.

“Yes. We can talk.”

He rolled her just enough to access her mouth, and kissed her as he redirected his hand; ran it down her thigh instead, lifting her leg up and back. She sighed against his lips as, lower, he slid his rigid length across her, already wet in anticipation.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he groaned. “How long have you been lying here, letting me rut up on you?”

“You were having a _very_ good dream,” she countered. “I didn’t wanna interrupt.”

She grasped his wrist then, and moved his hand to cup around her mons; folded their fingers over to form a channel for him to slip into that pressed him up through her slit with every stroke, and he growled a little at the sensation of her body lubricating one side of him, while his pre-come across their fingers slicked the other. Her tongue darted out to swipe along his damp upper lip; to pull it between her teeth before he sealed their mouths together again in response, his own tongue delving past hers.

A subtle chirp from above, then:

A rolicking six-string.

A brushed drum-and-cymbal beat.

A tenor declaring _There is nothing that is wrong, wanting you to stay here with me…_

Aunna’s head wrenched away, crowing sudden laughter. Martin sighed, and pressed his forehead to the back she presented him with.

“Sim0ne,” he called into the hollow between them, “pause playback.”

The music stopped. After a moment Aunna sobered, blinked, and cast another look behind her.

“New project?” she asked. Martin lifted his gaze and shrugged.

“Just something I’ve been kicking around in my head,” he supplied. “Early stages, but I have big ideas and lots of time to work them out.”

Her expression softened into something achingly fond, and she moved her hand off of his to cup his cheek instead.

“Not a one-trick-pony,” she said with a wispy smile. “That’s good.”

He chuckled, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist; then lowered his lashes-

“Now .. where were we?”

-and rocked his hips back.

* * *

Sweated and sated after, she said,

“You know the only reason Eric let me go was so I could continue my ‘studies’.” Aunna turned over so she was facing him completely, and let him draw her in. “I told you that, right?”

Martin responded with an affirmative hum, positing, “And now he’s checking up on you, because of whatever’s happening in Garnath.”

Her face twisted in a complicated way.

“Not yet,” she admitted. “But I think he will be, sooner than later.”

“‘Whatever card he can make of you’,” Martin remembered aloud. Aunna cocked him a slanted smile; huffed a little laugh before sobering.

“I’ll not disappear again,” she committed, her gaze steady when it met his. “I won’t just vanish. You deserve better, and I’m sorry. So I’ll leave a note, or I'll let you know.”

Martin nodded, “Thank you.”

“And I’ll try to keep it to less than a day.” Her delivery wasn’t grudging, but it _was_ pragmatic. “That said, Shadow being Shadow…”

“Yeah,” he exhaled wryly into the pause. “Yeah, I get it.”

“It’s only until I can get Tristan to fess up.”

Her voice took on a plaintive tilt at that, and she reached up to comb his hair back from his brow as she said it. It was a fair compromise though, Martin thought. Her brother was her best source of information, short of going back to Amber herself, and even if part of her thought he was withholding, she wasn't certain enough to put her freedom on the line.

 _And he may well be_ , Martin thought. He had never met the man, but had built a strong enough impression of Tristan over the years to determine he was ‘good oats’: an upstanding person, a healthy influence. So if there _was_ something brewing in Amber, and Tristan _wasn’t_ spilling his guts to her over it, Martin suspected there was a valid reason.

He kissed Aunna’s forehead in silent acquiescence when she tipped it toward him, and brought her with him when he shifted onto his back; landed in a casual sprawl with one arm behind his head, her cheek against his chest and leg draping over him. She smoothed a palm up his sternum, then down and out to rest on his hip.

“Sim0ne,” she ventured after a settling moment. “Resume playback?”

A subtle chirp. A high-slide guitar over a heavy-walking bass. Another tenor, this one claiming _You know I need your love; you got that hold over me_ _…_

Martin felt her smirk against his chest.

He chuckled in return, thankful that she probably wouldn’t figure out it was a curated playlist ( _Songs that Make Me Think of Her_ , because he was a closet sap apparently).

Then he considered the possibility of a more direct interface than voice command, and added it to his growing list of Big Ideas.

* * *

Aunna set her fork down so hard, the plate it connected with sang against the countertop.

“Are you fucking _kidding me_ right now, Martin?” She was practically apoplectic with incredulity. “How is it you don’t know more than _basic self defense_?”

He blinked owlishly at her over his coffee. “Like this?”

She gaped at him in return, astounded.

“I mean, I can understand not learning how to ride until you got to Texorami: horses, water, blah blah,” she waved a dismissive hand. “But you’re telling me they don’t even teach _fencing_ to Princes of Rebma?”

“I would like you to imagine a rapier underwater,” he replied. Then paused to allow her time to do just that.

So she did. The absurdity of it made her snort a little.

“Exactly,” Martin validated. “Rex taught me how to box, not long after he and I met. And a bit of defensive fighting because I’ve always been smaller than most. But other than that, I’m a blank slate.”

She looked vaguely horrified, then suddenly resolute. She snatched up her fork and re-loaded it with brisk stabs.

“Yeah, we gotta fix that,” she declared.

* * *

Martin’s voice preceded him into the cellar. “What are you _doing_ down here?”

“Making use of wasted space,” she grunted back.

He heard the thump of something heavy hitting the (newly matted) floor as he descended the stairs, and ducked his head below the ceiling to see what was going on.

The ‘something heavy’ turned out to be a punching bag. As he watched, Aunna hoisted it by the chained end, climbed a three-step for added height, and suspended it from an exposed beam at the far end of the previously-neglected space. Which had been transformed into a sparring room while he’d slept.

Which in turn meant she probably hadn’t. Martin found that a bit concerning.

It didn’t seem to be having any adverse effect on her, though. She glanced over as she hopped down again, and caught his gaze as she wiped a forearm across her brow. She smiled.

“So what would you like to learn first?” she asked, jovial. “Armed, or Un?”

* * *

He woke to fingers brushing tousled locks from his face. The room was a murky grey of pre-dawn, and she was dressed in a sort of bronze-toned body armour he’d never seen before: carapace-like, with faint edges of green. Her hair was pulled back in a flat knot at the nape of her neck. Her sabre was belted to her right hip; the long, curved dagger to her left.

“I need a few days,” she told him. “Meet you at the loft, after?”

Martin sat up with a nod and kissed her. “Ok.”

* * *

When she coiled up against him later, and tucked her damp hair under his chin, the undertone he caught was earth, and iron.

And copper.

And char.

He inhaled to speak. She clutched across his chest, staying his words.

“I’m fine,” she assured. “Just tired. And ready to take a break from ‘appearances’.”

There was a grain of salt in the decree, but he consumed it all the same.

* * *

“You trainin’ up for somethin’, Marty?”

Martin looked up from his cards to see Rex gesturing across the table at his overall form, cigar puffing out rings of smoke above his fingers.

“Not sure I follow,” Martin replied, eyes back on his hand, his own cigarette bobbing between his lips. He plucked out two cards, and laid them face-down at his right elbow; received a new pair from the woman seated there.

Rex guffawed, slapping down his own discards. “Boy, you’ve been on the meaty side of wiry as long as I’ve known you,” he fired back. “But I’d lay money you could cold bench press yer old lady right now, and not get yer pulse up.”

“Oh, I don’t know about _that_ …” Aunna flicked a sly gaze Martin’s way as she dealt the burly man two new cards, and herself three. Rex’s attention drifted between the two of them, and he prodded,

“Is this a kink thing?”

Aunna snorted back a laugh.

Martin smirked. “It probably is, sometimes. I raise twenty.”

His chits clattered into the pot.

* * *

_“FUCKMYTITSJESUS!”_

Aunna gaped down at the sword protruding from her abdomen, then rolled her gaze up to Martin at the other end of it. He looked flatly horrified.

“o _fuck_ ,” he intoned.

“ _FUCK!_ ” she bellowed at the ceiling. “You _almost_ had my heart!”

“I am _so sorry_.” Martin released the hilt and backed away as he spun to face her, giving his full attention. “What can I do?”

“Aim _higher_ next time!”

Martin balked. Straightened. Fixed her with a disapproving eye.

“Wait _what?_ ”

“Aim _higher_ next time,” Aunna repeated as she drew the weapon out, and thrust it back at him, hilt first. “You got my liver _and_ my lung, but missed the heart _completely!_ _Fuck!_ ”

* * *

“Where’s Kate?”

Martin glanced across the table at Rex, and lifted one shoulder with a wry grin as he resumed contemplating the cards in his hand.

“Dealing with some family stuff, but she’ll be around later.” He slid a trio of them aside, face down. “Three, please.”

A small hesitation before Rex picked up the deck, and dealt them over.

“Yer ok though?”

This time, Martin’s expression was softer; more genuine.

“Yeah,” he replied, arranging the new cards into his hand. “[We’re fine, thanks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857632/chapters/73468911).”

* * *

She _was_ pulling away from him, though.

Incrementally, subconsciously, but undeniably.

And then-

“There’s a compound…”

He actually _saw_ Aunna question herself, and then push past her conditioned misgivings; remain resolute in her decision to tell him:

“There's a compound I know of that’ll render my abilities inert.”

And christ the look she fixed him with…

Martin had never seen her so naked.

* * *

She was muttering in Malwainese under her breath, scribbling furiously at something on the counter in front of her.

“What are you doing?” he asked. 

“Wouldn’t you know,” Aunna replied, not bothering to look up from her hunched position, “that the sparkling dumbass actually _liked_ the Heinlein junk? I sent that shit as a _joke!”_ She shook her head, “But he _hated_ Vonnegut. Called it ‘confusing’.” 

Martin approached on her off side, unfailingly amused by how easily Tristan could get under his sister’s skin. He slid his arms around her middle, and rested his chin on her shoulder. He glanced down at the title page - a darkened background, a seated figure silhouetted by the moon at the bottom, and the words _The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger_ \- below which she’d inscribed, in an almost savage block-print:

 _Here, you contrary asshole. Hate_ _this_ _one!_

“He honestly has terrible taste, Martin,” Aunna bemoaned with so much faux disdain. “It’s a wonder he’s able to function in normal society at all.”

She slapped the cover shut, and it was like the action took all the rile out of her. Martin turned his face slightly to brush lips against her cheek.

“Still think he’s holding out on you?” he ventured.

She tensed briefly, then relented with a sigh.

“What do you want to focus on tonight, then?” he nudged, before she could get too far up in her head about it.

* * *

“I can’t know it’s coming,” she advised, once the concoction was distilling. “I’ll protect myself, otherwise. Just reflex. Savvy?”

“I understand.”

* * *

She took him to a firing range in Nicholasville.

While he had no intention of becoming a ‘gun nut’, the activity still got his blood up, and they fucked until he roared, after.

* * *

She left him another Kilroy on the board in the barn: _I actually kinda hate the smell of napalm in the morning…_

The Hellriders were playing in Delfini Heights that weekend.

It was a hell of a show.

* * *

Aunna’s hands had new (old) edges, so it was a strange duality when she was gentle with them…

…and sometimes a deliciously unkind dé-jà vu when she wasn’t.

“Fucking _christ_ Aunna.” The run-on was a groan that went nowhere, the matting beneath him as effective as the soundproofing in his studio.

Wedged between his thighs, she leered above him and cranked her wrist _just right_.

“Rather be fucking _you_ ,” she stated.

No gunsmoke undertone, but still he thought:

_“Turn me inside out, Martin. I want to feel you for days.”_

* * *

That evening, Martin casually put his arm around her as they cuddled up to watch TV after dinner, and planted a kiss to her hairline.

A moment later, Aunna sagged against him; inert.

He carefully eased her down to the cushions, and dropped the dart he’d concealed in his palm onto the coffee table. Checked her pulse and respiration; confirmed both were steady and normal.

Across the room, the TV droned on without his attention.

Because she was so vulnerable.

She’d let him make her this vulnerable.

And he loved her _so much_.

* * *

“How do you feel?”

Martin ran a hand up her arm, soothing over sensual. From her place on the sofa, Aunna lifted a lethargic smile in return.

“Tingly and numb,” she supplied after a thoughtful moment. “And I was out at least twenty minutes if _Ripley’s_ is over, so you got the dosage right. Well done.”

“Had a good Mentor.” His smile was adoring and genuine, tinged with some relief. “And I know you told me I could take you like this, but I’d rather not, if it’s all the same."

Her expression melted blissfully as she drifted off again.

* * *

“I _finally_ got him to admit that there’s something going on.”

Martin looked up from his slouched position over the Nightingale, and tilted his head. “Yeah?”

“Apparently, there’s a mysterious ‘Path’ that’s cropped up in parts of the GC,” Aunna continued, flopping across the wingback sofa in the most casual sprawl he’d seen her take on in _months_. “It’s spitting out oddities, and they’re not sure what caused it in the first place, but they’ve got it under observation and Tristan’s little JTF is investigating so .. yeah.”

Then she flung an arm over her eyes and sighed. The relaxation she exuded was palpable.

“We should see Bowie,” she ejected a moment later. “He's playing Queen’s Hall tonight. Wanna go?”

Outside, the dog days were winding down. Fall was closing in.

**Author's Note:**

> Here concludes the 'Just Another Future Song' series. It's been a glorious ride, and I'm stupidly proud of myself for completing it.
> 
> One step closer to the _real_ story I want to tell. Holy shit.
> 
> Aunna and Martin's story picks back up in '[Liberty She Pirouette](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23731828)', which was actually the _first_ fic I wrote in the overarching 'And We Are Merely Players' series. Careful. It's a heartbreaker.
> 
> Kudos are love :) Comments are moderated (for spam, not content), but always welcome. :)


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